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Pub Companies

The motion does in fact specify a ““free-of-tie option””. Many pub-owning companies would say that some sites are appropriate for leases—where the partner can build the value of the lease by building up the food business, for example—whereas others are more appropriate for a traditional tenancy-type business. The motion as stated would conflict with that approach. In addition to that false implicit impression, there is a confusing conflation of tenants and lessees. On the one hand, we seem to be saying that this is only about very large pub companies that run leases; yet a number of those who have spoken in favour of that proposition have referred to the people in question as tenants. I am not entirely sure where the cut-off point of 500 sites comes from. It is possibly intended to target just a couple of companies, but frankly, coming up with a regulatory package for the whole industry is probably not the best way to do that. I fear that that would pull in a couple of other companies it is perhaps not intended to target. Most importantly, there is little evidence that I know of that traditional, smaller, integrated brewers have any difficulty with the tie, which suggests to me that there is no problem with the tie per se.